Mérida - Alcazaba

South of the Plaza de España, on the banks of the Guadiana, is the Alcazaba, a Moorish castle created in 855 by the enlargement of an earlier Roman and Visigothic building, which was later converted by the Order of Santiago into a monastery. The Moors restored the Roman cistern in the basement of the fortress and built a flight of steps down to it, re-using Roman and Visigothic stones.